Freedom Summer: Activist Remembers 50 Years Later

The Mississippi Summer Project, which came to be known as "Freedom Summer," was a campaign launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi.

At the time, the state of Mississippi had historically excluded most blacks from voting. Many Northern students participated in helping in this process as part of the Civil Rights movement.

Local civil rights activist, Dr. Margaret "Peggy" Rozga was one of the students that went to the South in 1965. She said she was motivated to do so after learning of the murders of Freedom Summer activists James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and volunteer Andrew Goodman.

“(These events) astounded me, I didn’t know how that could be … this was America what do you mean people can’t vote,” she explained.

The next year, she said she found herself on a bus to Alabama to do the same work there. Her time in Alabama wasn't marked by violence, but was filled with fear. She explained that volunteers held a weekly meeting at a black church and driving back to the family where she was staying took her through the town of Midway, Ala. Each week as she passed through the town, a group of white teens would get in a car and follow her.

“I knew the Daniels family’s driveway was right after the third curve out of Midway, so I would count. First curve, second curve, third curve, slam on the brakes, turn in the Daniel’s driveway,” she recounted. “When you read documents about life in the South at this time, the word terror comes up a lot and it was a society controlled by (terrorists).”

Rozga and Oconomowoc High School history teacher Jim O'Leary are leading a trip to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer that will retrace some of the journeys of the Civil Rights pioneers.

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